War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
(Illustration found here). In reality, a picture is indeed worth a shitload of words. One haunting face, that 4-year-old Iraqi kid — the above photo has been on Google Images for years, and has always caused me to hurt whenever I spotted it (used it a couple of times on blog posts to epitomize, or…
Opened with a big bang — ‘shock and awe’ — and closed with a deceitful shudder. The US ended its military misadventure on Iraq yesterday awash in bullshit. Leon Panetta has got to be one of the most disingenuous and hypocritical assholes this side of Newt Gingrich, claiming the Iraqi debacle was worth the price…
Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.†— Donald H. Rumsfeld memorandum, Nov. 6, 2006 (Illustration found here). In the annuals of world history there’s…
(Illustration found here). The US drone war is the one conflict that’s always continually escalating — even as the US vacates an isolated Pakistani base from where UAV aircraft were launched will apparently not slow the operations down at all. From Wired: The CIA just got kicked out of a major Pakistani launching pad for…
“Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried…
Another thin-skinned GOP asshole caught being an asshole — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback got his panties in a bind when a high school student Tweeted that the good governor, “#heblowsalot:†Emma Sullivan, 18, was hauled into her principal’s office and ordered to write letters of apology after one of Governor Sam Brownback’s office contacted the…
Being sick is a total bitch — and I say that in a nice way for all you female dogs out there. My youngest daughter came down out of the mountains a week or so ago just finishing up a bad cold, and promptly gave it to me, thank-you very much! Now after plying myself…
“The issue is not whether the Iraqi people will greet U.S. soldiers as their liberators, but what will they do six months after that. I find it naive and disingenuous to claim that you can create democracy in Iraq any time soon. The administration has already assured us that the U.S. will not stay there…
“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. “To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet…
Another anniversary this morning, and a sad day indeed for US peoples. Ten years ago today, George Jr. signed into law the infamous USA/Patriot Act, a move which revealed the end game for the great American experiment in democracy — nowadays the US is closer to George Orwell than George Washington. And although George Jr.…